Overcoming the odds, is what the addiction trope is all about. Once our hero or heroine have hit rock bottom - it can only get better. Who doesn't love a protagonist who is willing to work on themselves so that they are worthy of their heart of hearts? We have compiled a list of the best romance books featuring heroes and heroines with addiction problems.

#1 Unholy Ghosts (Downside Ghosts #1) - Stacia Kane

The world is not the way it was. The dead have risen, and the living are under attack. The powerful Church of Real Truth, in charge since the government fell, has sworn to reimburse citizens being harassed by the deceased.

Enter Chess Putnam, a fully tattooed witch and freewheeling ghost hunter. She’s got a real talent for banishing the wicked dead. But Chess is keeping a dark secret: She owes a lot of money to a murderous drug lord named Bump, who wants immediate payback in the form of a dangerous job that involves black magic, human sacrifice, a nefarious demonic creature, and enough wicked energy to wipe out a city of souls... more

#2 The Tied Man (The Tied Man #1) - Tabitha McGowan

Lilith Bresson, an independent, successful young artist, is forced to travel from her home in Spain to the wild borderlands of northern England, to repay her feckless father’s latest debt by painting a portrait of the enigmatic Lady Blaine Albermarle.

On her first night at Albermarle Hall she meets Finn Strachan, Blaine’s ‘companion’, a cultured and hauntingly beautiful young man who seems to have it all. But Lilith has an artist’s eye, and a gift for seeing what lies beneath the skin. She soon discovers that Blaine is more gaoler than lover, and if the price is right, depravity has no limits... more

#3 Takedown (The Precinct #12) - Julie Miller

SWAT Captain Michael Cutler's pulse was racing. He should have been thinking about the intense hostage crisis he'd just diffused. But he couldn't keep his mind off of "her"--Jillian Masterson, the leggy brunette who had come to him for protection from an obsessive stalker.

He certainly hadn't been looking for love, especially with someone fifteen years his junior. But their chemistry was undeniable. As the stalker's threats intensified, Michael knew he'd go to any lengths to bring him down. Even if that entailed giving Jillian some very personal security...... more

#4 Rachel's Holiday (Walsh Family #2) - Marian Keyes

The fast lane is much too slow for Rachel Walsh. And Manhattan is the perfect place for a young Irish female to overdo everything. But Rachel's love of a good time is about to land her in the emergency room. It will also cost her a job and the boyfriend she adores.

When her loving family hustles her back home and checks her into Ireland's answer to the Betty Ford Clinic, Rachel is hopeful. Perhaps it will be lovely—spa treatments, celebrities, that kind of thing. Instead, she finds a lot of group therapy, which leads her, against her will, to some important self-knowledge. She will also find something that all women like herself fear: a man who might actually be good for her... more

#5 Taming the Night - Paula Detmer Riggs

Dr. Summer Laurence knows the horror of addiction from the wrong side. But after life-changing therapy, she becomes a drug counselor, hoping to help young kids. When Summer's friend Dottie offers her an old house to convert into a counseling facility, Summer jumps at the chance to make her Phoenix Ranch dream come true. There's only one problem--Brody Hollister, Dottie's suspicious nephew and the local chief of police. Brody despises drug users and thinks counseling is useless. But there's something about Summer he can't ignore... more

#6 Hard Rock Remix (The Lonely Kings #2) - Ava Lore

A damsel in distress...

The day of a young woman's wedding should be the happiest day of her life, but for Aylen Ware, it is the worst. Raised from a young age in a secret splinter sect of the Fundamentalist Mormon Church, Aylen has spent her life suppressing her true self and living in constant fear of violence and abuse. The Elders of the church claim that she has been chosen to be the eighteenth bride of a man three times her age and renowned for his cruelty, but Aylen has other ideas. Mere minutes before her wedding, she runs, knowing that she will fail in her flight unless she can find someone to help her...

An unlikely prince...

Half-naked and passed out drunk on a motel bed, Carter Hudson doesn’t seem like a knight in shining armor... more

#7 Yellowstone Redemption - Peggy L. Henderson

City boy Chase Russell is on the fast track to self-destruction. A star athlete, he gets into trouble with drugs and alcohol. Fulfilling a community service sentence in Yellowstone National Park is the last thing he wants to do. After a night of drinking in the park, he wakes up to find his new friends gone, and everything around him has changed.

Sarah Osborne grew up in the rugged Yellowstone wilderness. She can hunt and track right alongside the most experienced men. When some Indians drop a near-dead man off on her doorstep, she doesn’t know what to think. He’s convinced he’s from the future, and wants to find a way home.

Chase has no idea how he ended up time traveling to the past. He doesn’t know the first thing about surviving without modern conveniences... more

#8 Heartthrob - Suzanne Brockmann

Once voted the “Sexiest Man Alive,” Jericho Beaumont had dominated the box office before his fall from grace. Now he is poised for a comeback with the role of a lifetime. He wants the part bad enough to sign an outrageous contract with top producer Kate O’Laughlin—one that gives her the authority to supervise JB’s every move, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

The last thing Kate wants to do is baby-sit her leading man, and Jericho may be more than she can handle. A player in every sense of the word, he is an actor of incredible talent—and a man with a darkly haunted past. Despite her better judgment, Kate finds herself irrevocably drawn to him... more

#9 Innocents (Dusty #1) - Mary Elizabeth, Sarah Elizabeth

The girl with an innocent heart knows all about bad choices, but has yet to make them for herself. Searching for freedom, she finds it in the delinquent down the hall.

The troublemaker with summer-sky blue eyes knows he should stay away, but can’t resist the blissful wonder who makes his house a home.

She’s a hopeless romantic. He’s just hopeless.

She’s his reason, but he might not catch her when she falls.

She loves him. He loves her crazy.

This is what happens when a love made of secrets is kept with rules instead of promises... more

#10 Surviving Raine (Surviving Raine #1) - Shay Savage

As the captain of a schooner catering to the elite on the Caribbean Seas, Sebastian Stark does his best to avoid any human encounters. Interacting with people isn’t his thing, and he prefers the company of a bottle of vodka, a shot glass, and maybe a whore. There’s no doubt he’s hiding from a checkered past, but he does well keeping everything to himself…

…until the night his schooner capsizes, and he’s stuck on a life raft with one of the passengers.

Raine’s young, she’s cute, and Bastian would probably be into her if he wasn’t suffering from alcohol withdrawal. As the days pass, DTs, starvation, and dehydration become the norm... more